Just like normal people
by yeahishipdrarry
Summary: Finn and Kurt are far too proud to admit they sometimes need help. So, without the other knowing, both begin to do good deeds, the only reward the fact that their brother is smiling again. But secrets are hard to keep forever... Finchel and Klaine, background. T for Language


"Hey Finn!" Kurt calls out into the kitchen when he gets home from coffee with Blaine, "Are you home?"

Kurt is pulling off his grey coat as he ambles through the house, knowing he only has an hour left to get ready before he'd off out with Rachel and Mercedes, but he stops dead by the banister of the stairs. Gently he hangs his coat on the bannister and then walks into the sitting room where an upset Finn is sitting with what seems to be pages of maths work spread out around him. He's flicking through them all, letting out exasperated sighs, and using a calculator to work something out every now and again. If Kurt didn't know better it looked like his brother was trying to calculate what he needed to get to pass maths.

"Finn?" Kurt says, finally making his brother turn round, "What's going on?"

"I'm failing maths. I've been going to revision sessions every lunch time for weeks and yet I'm still doing worse than Puck even!" Finn said, and as Kurt crept forwards he could now see the large red F's in the top of every sheet of both classwork and homework.

"Do you not understand the work or something?" Kurt asked.

"I always think I do but then I don't. Like last week we did about that guy… um, Pythagoras and his Theorem, but then when I did all my sums every single one in the same way, every single one was wrong. Even Puck got it," Finn bemoaned. "If I don't get my grades back on track by next week then for a start Beiste will kick me off the Football team and then I'll never graduate!"

"Calm down, Finny," Kurt said, knowing that the nickname was what Carole called Finn when he got stressed or upset to reassure him a little.

"It's alright for you; you're in the AP sets even at Dalton!" Finn sighed and ran a hand through his mussed up hair, "Look, don't worry about it, okay? You got to get out with Mercedes and Rachel and I know you're going to want all this time to get ready, right?" Finn said and Kurt nodded. But as he was about leave he noticed how dejected his big giant of a brother looked and couldn't help turning back and sitting down next to him. Finn looked up at him in surprise, like he was about to say something, but Kurt held up a hand to halt him there.

"I'm just going to text Mercedes and Rachel to go out without me. If you can stand it then tonight is going to be a maths night for us," Kurt said, "I'll teach you what you need to know."

"Nah, Kurt, I can't ask you to do that. Mercedes and Rachel have been going on about seeing you for ages and they'd kill me if I was the reason you couldn't go out tonight. And I know you've been looking forward to it too," Finn said, and Kurt was once again thrilled that out of all the people he'd chosen to introduce his Dad to, it was the one with a son who had become the best brother ever.

"You're not asking me, I'm offering. And I won't tell Mercedes or Rachel, we can meet up some other point this weekend," Kurt said smiling.

And so Burt and Carole arrived home from the garage, from which Carole had picked her husband up from, to find their two sons sitting together in the living room with one patiently explaining and the other carefully listening.

#

The phone rang through the house causing Finn to look round as if someone else was going to jump up and get it instead of him. In his head he knew that Burt was at the garage, his mom was at the Hospital and Kurt was in the shower so wouldn't have heard the phone ring at all. Finn pressed pause on his video game and got to his feet, lumbering out to the hall where the phone was ringing in the stand. Picking it up he sighed before speaking.

"Hello?"

"Is this the Hummel household?" a voice asked, not one that Finn immediately recognized.

"The Hummel and Hudson house, yeah," Finn said, "Who is this?"

"We were just calling to ask the fag's dad if he knew what a faggy little failure his son is or whether he's just as sick as the fag himself," the voice sneered and Finn could hear pubescent laughter in the background.

"Excuse me!" Finn shouted down the phone, "You can't say stuff like that about my brother. My brother is worth a million times what you are and it doesn't matter that he's gay – he's awesome. Being gay doesn't make you sick."

"God, Hudson, you're another fucking convert to the gay parade – you make me sick," the voice continued but Finn cut him off before he could say anything else against Kurt.

"Shut the fuck up! Listen if I ever find out who you are or here that anyone has been hassling Kurt then you'll have me to deal with and I'll rip you apart. So you keep the hell away from this family and keep your stupid opinions to yourself because no one wants to fucking hear them anyway," Finn shouted angrily before slamming the phone down.

Finn turned away from the phone, anger pulsing through his blood, and fought down the temptation to punch something hard. However before he could get back to his abandoned game he heard the bathroom door open and Kurt stepped out in a towel to say, "Who was that? Why were you shouting at them?"

"Don't worry," Finn said, "Just some idiot trying to sell me something we don't need."

"Alright," Kurt said, though his eyes were suspicious, "But next time you really should try not to verbally abuse them, alright?"

He walked along the corridor into his room and shut the door behind him, prompting Finn to sigh with relief that he hadn't heard the whole conversation and that he'd managed to save him the heartbreak of hearing all those things about himself, or even Burt or his mom hearing it. He couldn't deny it was spiked with a twinge of regret that he had ever used the word fag in reference to Kurt. But he turned back to his game, promising to keep this a secret to himself.

#

"Finn," Kurt grinned, as his brother got home from a late football practice, "How are you?" Kurt got to his feet and hugged him tight, a gesture which was returned with much gusto.

"Yeah, just got a few girl problems," Finn said.

"Oh is Quinn being—" Kurt began.

"Not Quinn this time, bro, but Rachel's being really weird. And by weird I mean annoying. Basically… she got off with Puck whilst we were supposed to be dating and now she doesn't understand why I don't just forgive her," Finn said.

"So she cheated on you?" Kurt said, and despite being best friends with Rachel he was annoyed on his brother's behalf that she was as usual being so blind to people's feelings in her typical fashion. One day she was going to wake up and realize that the whole world didn't revolve around her.

"Yeah," Finn said, and Kurt could actually really tell this was hurting him, "I told her that I loved her and then she found out I slept with Santana before our relationship started. So she cheated on me in revenge and then acted all like we were equal now as if you got points for each thing you did against each other. I don't know about her Kurt – why can't she just act like a normal girl sometimes?"

"I'm sorry, Finn," Kurt said, "But I made you your favourite sandwich as a pre-tea snack – it's gonna be late tonight – so you go and eat that whilst I think about what you should do about Rachel."

"Thanks, dude. Urgh!" he said, pulling out his merrily singing phone, "The worst thing is she calls me all hours of the day and night just to say she'll accept my apology for sleeping with Santana if we can go back to how things should be."

When Finn was gone, throwing his phone down on the sofa next to Kurt, Kurt noticed it was ringing again with Rachel's face on the screen. Knowing that Finn would take a few minutes at the least to eat the monster sandwich Kurt had made him, he grabbed the phone and answered the call. For a second there was a silence until Rachel started with, "All you have to do is apologize for acting inappropriately-"

"Rachel!" Kurt said, suddenly angry with her, "You need to back off. Finn is really upset because of you. He has nothing to apologize for – he slept with Santana before he started dating you and you never asked him before now if he had slept with anyone else. Seriously you better lay off him or I'm going to be seriously pissed off, okay?"

"Fine," a sullen girl answered, and Kurt knew he would take a while to get back in her good books – but he found he didn't even care.

"Good."

"You know Kurt, back a few months ago you would never have even considered being so blatantly _rude_ to me for Finn."

"I know that," Kurt said, as he heard Finn return and knew his time was running out, "But that's before I gained the best brother ever. Goodnight Rachel and don't forget what I said."

Kurt feigned surprise many hours later when Finn voiced his own surprise that Rachel hadn't contacted him since he'd got in from school. Kurt shouldered the knowledge that he was doing the right thing but vowed to himself that he would never say a word.

#

Kurt had come home from school way too early to have just skipped one lesson which made the sort-of ill Finn wonder what was going on. It was when he saw the tears that decorated his brother's pretty eyes that he realized something bad had clearly happened at school that day and upset him. Finn wasn't much of a person for emotions – though he loved their lady chats that he and Kurt had each night before bed with warm milk – but for once he decided to just bite the bullet and be brave, confronting him immediately about what had happened.

"Kurt, come sit down," Blaine said, patting the seat next to him at the kitchen table, "I'll get you some milk and then you can tell me what happened. Who hurt you?"

"No one hurt me," Kurt sniffed, as the milk rotated in the microwave, "Well not intentionally and not physically anyway. It's just we had to sing to this guy today in the Gap near Dalton because Blaine wanted to serenade the guy he's sort of in love with. It just really hurt seeing him fawning over another guy when he'd so oblivious to my advances time and time again."

"Kurt, I'm so sorry," Finn said, "Any guy would be lucky to have you."

"You know, a few months back and I would have died to hear you say something like that," Kurt laughed, and Finn smiled, "But now I'm just glad to have someone here to listen to me moaning."

"Come on, it's all fair," Finn said grinning, "I moan loads about Rachel too."

The evening wound up with Finn and Kurt watching Project Runway together – Finn asking almost identical questions every few seconds. However by the time the entire series had ended Kurt was snoring away on the sofa and Finn had to untangle himself to stand up. Sighing at his brother's sleeping form he lent down and picked the boy up, carrying him into his bedroom and then placing him gently down on the bed. He wasn't going to completely strip him or anything but he did remove Kurt's skin jeans and top shirt, leaving him in an undershirt and boxers.

Kurt was only the tiniest bit conscious when Finn leant down and pressed a kiss to Kurt's forehead as he left the room.

#

"It's useless!" Finn shouted at Rachel, "You're going to have this big shot career and then I'll just be your failure on the side. I don't want that!"

"Finn, any actor knows that someone has to play the small background roles in any performance-" Rachel started and Kurt actually shuddered at how terrible that analogy was in describing Finn's place in Rachel's life. He should have been her co-star.

"Just leave Rachel," Finn said from the sitting room.

Rachel and Finn were silent for a couple of minutes, giving Kurt enough time to seat himself in the kitchen and make it look like he was just reading the paper, when she bustled on through. Rachel and Kurt had long since made up over their previous altercation so she swooped down on him to press a kiss to his cheeks. When Rachel straightened up she sighed and said, "I honestly am just trying to do right by him. I want him to know how special he is but he just thinks that he has no special skills – especially none that will earn him money when he's older. He needs confidence."

"I'll sort it, Rach," Kurt said, hugging her tight, knowing she really was trying to do the best she could in an unfamiliar situation for her.

When Rachel had left Kurt walked through to the sitting room to find Finn sitting there as if waiting for one of their infamous lady chats. But when Kurt gave him a warm smile and just said, "I'm going to get some warm milk then we'll talk," he was shocked that Finn suddenly cut him off but standing up. Finn shook his head and said, "I don't even want to talk. Sorry, Kurt."

Finn hurried up the stairs then, moving almost faster than when he was offered food, and Burt just got a glimpse of his trousers going up the stairs as he walked in the door. For a second he looked at Kurt, as if trying to gauge whether they had argued or something, but upon seeing a calm face, if a slightly worried one he instead opened his arms for a hug. Kurt encased himself in the bulky but comforting arms and said, "Finn's having a crisis at the moment."

"What sort of crisis? With Rachel again?" Burt asked.

"No, a confidence crisis sort of. He doesn't think he's going to amount to anything when he leaves school and says he doesn't even know how he's going to earn money," Kurt said, biting his lip.

"But he has plenty of talent that kid. He can act and sing and play football. Not being funny but I think the kid got a pretty good end of the stick. But I guess Finn has always been a bit oblivious to his positives," Burt said, settling down in a chair, "Carole and I talked about it once or twice but neither of us could think of anything that we could do to help him out."

"I have a suggestion," Kurt said.

"Go ahead, kiddo," Burt replied, his whole attention focused on his son.

"You could take Finn to the garage with you at weekends. Not only will it give you a chance to bond but having a father figure will make him feel emotionally much more stable. And not being funny but there's no reason that he shouldn't become a mechanic when he graduates," Kurt said. "He likes cars and I'm sure with a bit of training he would be good at it. If you could teach me you could teach anyone."

"You make a good point Kurt, but I don't know. Do you think he'd even want to?" Burt asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, I do," Kurt said, "Look just talk to him when he comes down for food, but _casually_ Dad, don't make it obvious. Alright?" Burt nodded.

So when Finn started going, every weekend and some nights after school, to learn how to become a mechanic, Kurt allowed himself a small smile. But when Finn finally said he knew where he fit into the world he allowed himself a much bigger one.

#

Finn had seen Kurt come home in tears too many times because of Blaine. Blaine was a nice guy and Finn actually really liked him and everything but he needed to stop hurting Kurt now and Finn was going to be the guy to break the news.

"_Hello_?" Blaine's voice answered.

"Hi Blaine, it's Finn," Finn responded, running through what he had to say in his head.

"_Oh hello. Sorry, don't have your number on my phone because, well, you don't usually call. Is everything okay? Is Kurt __okay?"_

"Kurt is… fine. He's not in trouble or anything but he is what I wanted to talk to you about. You see… I know Kurt told you that he has feelings for you on Valentine's Day and I get you don't return them dude but you need to back off Kurt or you're going to end up breaking him, and you're already pretty close."

"_I—"_

"No, listen. Kurt comes home crying all the time because of you. He says that you flirt with him all the time and sing duets with him that suggest you have intentions which you clearly don't."

"_No, Finn-_"

"Blaine, shush. Just please, either tell him you need to back off a little bit or try and set him up with someone who will actually love him like he needs to be loved. Blaine, you're a good guy and I like you, and I want you both to be happy, but he comes first—"

"_Finn! Shut up! I like Kurt… I really like him and I just don't know how to tell him. I was going to serenade him at the Warblers Practice but then I was worried he wouldn't like it so I didn't. What do you think?"_

"I think that sounds awesome and if you don't do it the next opportunity you get then I will have to kill you," Finn said, whilst Blaine laughed down the phone.

Two days later when Kurt told Finn that he and Blaine were now dating Finn had managed to practice his surprised face to perfection.

#

"Blaine is perfect," Kurt stated out loud as another text came through from Blaine. Since they had got together six months back Kurt had been infatuated and they were definitely the most loved up couple Finn had ever met.

"You know brother you should really thank me for that," Finn said.

"…Why?"

"I was the one who called Blaine up and told him to just ask you out already and told him how to do it too," Finn said, stretching the truth a little.

"Seriously? I guess you should thank me for getting Rachel to back off when she cheated on you then," Kurt said.

"I listened to you cry about Blaine and put you to bed!"

"I helped you with all your maths homework for months!"

"I-" they both began and then stopped with a small smile at each other.

Suddenly both of them were grinning away to each other, and then Kurt said, "All this time we've been messing about helping each other in secret! We could have just helped each other like normal people but I guess we're both just proud."

And that was when Finn launched himself at Kurt, hugging him tight as they hit the floor, and that evening was spent, as many more to come would be, in A and E with Kurt having a concussion. At least it wasn't the broken nose occasion of a couple of years later…


End file.
